Several environment-related bills are making it out of General Assembly committees this session, a key hurdle to winning passage.

Several environment-related bills are making it out of General Assembly committees this session, a key hurdle to winning passage.

The Resilient Rhode Island Act, which would make mitigating and adapting to climate change a priority for state government, moved out of the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture in a unanimous vote on Wednesday.

The bill has garnered a great deal of support from environmental advocacy groups as well as faculty and students at the Brown University. Another in a series of rallies for the legislation was held Tuesday, this one spotlighting the support of members of the business community.

The same Senate committee also approved a bill that would require producers of large amounts of food scraps to divert the waste from the Central Landfill beginning in 2016. Instead, the food scraps must either be used for animal feed or compost or be sent to a waste-to-energy facility.

The mandate, however, will be imposed only on institutions that produce two tons of food waste a week and those within 15 miles of a waste-to-energy plant. An anaerobic digestion plant is proposed for Quonset Business Park.

There has been no movement yet on bills to ban single-use plastic bags at retail stores statewide. Barrington, however, made permanent its plastic bag ban in a Town Council vote Monday. It’s the only Rhode Island municipality to do so.

Legislative committees also approved bills that would dramatically expand the state program that has driven the development of solar power over the past three years. The legislation would extend the life of the distributed generation program and increases its size.

The program guarantees the purchase of power from solar arrays, wind turbines, biogas generators and small hydropower facilities. The current target of 40 megawatts by the end of this year would jump to 200 megawatts by 2020.

Versions of the bill passed in the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture on Wednesday and the House Committee on Environment and Agriculture on Thursday.

Climate change

The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, based at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, held its annual public lecture series this week. (I serve on its advisory board.)

Attendance was up this year, and for the first time lectures had to be moved to a larger venue at the Bay campus, in the Corless Auditorium.

On Thursday, University of Hawaii biology Prof. Camilo Mora presented the results of studies he and his students have conducted on the potential effects of climate change on both wildlife and humans. While he mixed in some humor with his talk, it was nevertheless a grim portrait.

Animals and humans that find themselves in increasingly challenging environments — those affected by increased temperatures, severe weather or shortened food growing seasons — will either have to adapt, move or go extinct.

Already, said Mora, “we are losing species at rates not seen in millions of years.” And as a heat wave in Europe demonstrated in 2003, when it claimed the lives of about 50,000 people, “climate change can kill,” he said.

Droughts could force Mexicans to migrate to the United States. The collapse of coral reefs and the industries they support could compel Indonesians to move to Australia. And rising sea levels might lead Bangladeshis in that nation’s many low-lying areas to move to India.

Analyzing reams of scientific data, Mora’s team charted how global warming will cause changes in ocean conditions, such as acidity, temperature, oxygen levels and phytoplankton abundance.

“There is no safe place in the ocean,” he said.

If the world does little to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, 2 billion people will find themselves in high-stress areas. Of those, 1 billion depend upon the ocean for food and jobs, and 870 million are particularly vulnerable because they are impoverished.

If climate trends continue, he said, the world’s most productive agriculture will be found in Canada, Russia and China.

In Hawaii, he said, projections indicate that by the year 2029, the climate will reach a notable point, what he called “climate departure.” That’s when temperatures will fall outside the average of 150 years of historic records, from 1850 to 2000.

“We will live to see this,” he said.

Narrow River

To highlight the value of the Narrow River as a recreational resource, organizers will once again hold the Narrow River Turnaround Swim.

The ninth annual event will take place on June 28. It will bring more than 100 swimmers to the river. They’ll swim from the URI Campanella Rowing Center in North Kingstown to a buoy a half-mile away and then return to the beach.

The event raises money for Narrow River education and preservation programs. For more information, go to www.narrowriver.org.

Landscape ecology

Peter August, a professor of natural resources at the University of Rhode Island, has been awarded the 2014 Distinguished Service Award by the U.S. chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology.

August was presented with the award during the chapter’s annual symposium in Anchorage, Alaska, in May. August, a URI faculty member for 30 years, served as president of the organization from 2004 to 2006.